Austrian Art

After a long history of neglect, Austrian art is finally getting the global attention and recognition it deserves. The market value for Austrian art has been rising steadily over the last decade or so. One of the main reasons is that Impressionist art is fast becoming unaffordable due to extreme scarcity of new material. Art lovers are increasingly turning to more reasonably priced Austrian art and German art, since there is no dearth of promising artistic talent there. Paintings by modern Austrian artists carried very favourable price-tags right up to the early 1980s. However, there has been a decided upswing now that the international market for Austrian art has taken off in earnest.

Austrian art has an advantage over German art in the very lucrative American market. This is because there has been considerable residual stigma attached to German artists after World War II. The fact that the Nazis themselves denounced and ridiculed progressive German artists does not help. Moreover, many art lovers can relate better to Austrian art than to German art, since the themes and execution are generally more gentle and humanistic.

Austrian art has evolved in interesting ways. The beginning of the last century saw the emergence of renowned Austrian expressionists like Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. The 50s and 60s produced a new movement in Austrian art, producing Viennese Actionists such as Hermann Nitsch, Otto Muehl and Guenther Brus. These artists also subscribed to the expressionistic school of thought in modern art, but their emphasis was on social change. These Austrian artists used their art to address issues pertaining to justice, the environment, the rights of the homeless and child welfare. They used various mediums to bring their messages across, including the visual art, sound, the written word, puppetry and so on.

There were further developments of this new movement in Austrian art towards the 80s, which saw the advent of young, restless artists all over Europe. Austrian art now had an entirely new set of protagonists in the likes of Anzinger, Schmalix, Bohatsch and Klinkan. Today, Austrian art also has a new category that uses high technology as its fundament.

Despite these changes, Austrian artists have retained certain basic favourite themes, not the least of which is the human body. In many works of Austrian art, this medium is used to convey a considerable range of messages. This orientation has been observed in both male and female Austrian artists. In fact, Austria has a sizeable practitioners of feminist art - these include Valie Export, Maria Lassnig and Elke Krystufek. Like the Viennese Activists from the previous era, they used their own bodies as 'canvasses', often to the delight of more voyeuristic males and the outrage of many religious institutions.

Austrian art has had many famous personalities over the ages. Some of the earliest were Michael Pacher, Conrad Leib, Jacob Van Schuppen, Georg Raphael Donner and Martin Johann Schmidt. Hundertwasser, who lived from 1928 to 2000, was one of the most adored Austrian artists of the early 20th century. Today, the living legends include Erwin Wurm, Heimo Zobernig, Herbert Brandl and Markus Schinwald.

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